Mumbai: Three died trying to save others in highrise fire

The fire had started in flat 1403, where a woman and her daughter had seen an air-conditioner short-circuit and a spark.

Shaikh, a social worker, was heading to a gym in Hiranandani when he noticed the fire on the 14th floor from the road outside his chawl. When his friend refused to come along to help, he decided to go on his own. “In the two rounds he made in and out of the building, he managed to help half-a-dozen residents, mostly old people,” said Taiyaba Shaikh, his cousin.Shaikh’s sister Najma works as a domestic help in a flat on the sixth floor of the same building. Shaikh had initially entered the building to rescue her, but he learnt that she had already walked down the stairs with her employer’s family. He then started rescuing others.

“A woman was crying that her son was stuck on the 14th floor. Tausif did not listen to us despite our pleas that the fire was spreading fast,” said Najma. Shaikh, along with three other people, including Lohar and Pawar, took one of the lifts to the 14th floor.

According to Syed Imran, a resident of a sixth floor apartment, the lift opened at the 14th floor and an explosion occurred. Those in the the lift — there were four of them — inhaled poisonous carbon monoxide and became unconscious. “The lifts were switched off right at that moment. I suspect they could not return downstairs even if they wanted to,” Imran said.

According to Chief Fire Officer P Rahangdale, in cases of fire, a general practice is to switch off all electrical supplies to avoid further sparking. “It is usually our call to cut the electricity. We did the same in this case when we reached the spot at 5.53 pm after being informed at 5.32 pm,” he said.

Najma, however, said the building had enough CCTV cameras and somebody should have checked first to ensure that nobody was stuck inside a lift.

Shaikh, the eldest son in the family, has three sons aged seven, five and three years. On Sunday, the eldest Adnan kept asking relatives to call his father who hadn’t come home on Saturday night, while Shaikh’s wife sat motionless inside the house. His parents and two younger brothers also live in the same house and relied on Shaikh’s income to run the household.

Lohar, a chauffeur for a family living on the 15th floor, got married only a year ago and, like Shaikh, was the sole breadwinner for his parents, wife, brother and sister. According to his wife Preeti, no one from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation approached the family after his death to extend support or compensation.

Lohar’s neighbour and friend Sunil Ludge said, “The watchmen just stood and watched helplessly. It was because of these three men and a few residents that more lives were not lost.” Lohar was on duty when the fire broke out, and he decided to rescue people stuck on the 14th, 15th and 16th floors.

Pawar, the electrician, was living in Mumbai with his friend to earn money for his family in Kolkata. According to his friends, he regularly went to Lake Homes to fix electrical supplies for residents. “Yesterday, he had gone for work when the fire broke out. He joined Babu and Tausif to save people,” Ludge said.